The Home Office has been accused of being “cruel and insensitive” after a woman was threatened with deportation despite being in a coma in hospital.

Bhavani Espathi, 31, who was in a vegetative state for a week and a half after undergoing a major operation, received a letter stating that her application for leave to remain had been refused and that she was liable to be forcibly removed.

The Indian national’s fiance, Martin Mangler, 33, appealed against the decision while she was still unconscious, providing medical letters from her doctors stating that her life would be at risk if she were to travel.

But the Home Office said that while the medical treatment she was receiving was “unlikely” to be available to the same standard in India, this did not entitle her to remain in the UK – and that she could receive “palliative care” in her home country if the appropriate treatment wasn’t available there.

Lawyers and politicians said the case demonstrated how UK immigration rules were permitting the government to “send people to their death abroad” as part of the hostile environment.